Summer grass - be careful

Louisa Gidney · Post by **Louisa Gidney** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:44 am

2007 there was gloom & doom on this forum with predictions of hay reaching £5/small bale. In the event there was some decent weather in Sept & surprisingly good hay made @ the usual £2/bale. Last year less hay made but in July, same price plus some decent over year hay. Round here there is a sea of grass and everyone is cracking on getting big bales made. I can see I might have to invest in some big bale feeders but I can't see a dire shortage of fodder yet.

Martin · Post by **Martin** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:12 pm

In the South East we have had significantly different weather than the rest of the country. In the farmers weekly a couple of weeks ago a farmer from Ashford was saying that his spring barley was below par as he had received no significant rain since easter and his crops where suffering from the efects of drought.
I work about 6 miles from home and last week we had a decent storm whilst I was at work with a significant amount of rain. when I arrived home that evening I found that we had not had any rain at all with storms passing on both sides of us. My hay fields that where cut in early June are still not fit to put cattle on as there is still little growth due to a lack of rain. Don't get me wrong, we are getting rain every couple of days, but it is little bits that spoil the day and the next for combining but not enough to do the grass a lot of good.
I am having to buffer feed my cows with a couple of bales of hay a day to ensure they don't lose condition and try out the strength of the fencing.
Mark I think spoke about the possibility of a micro climate in Leicestershire, we sure have one here!

Martin · Post by **Martin** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:17 pm

I forgot to add, from the same acreage cut last year I got 1200 odd bales, this year I got 930

CarolineL · Post by **CarolineL** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:31 pm

Good to read this and see it's not just us suffering from lack of grass growth. We got one field of hay made ni the dry spell in June - got 80 bales off it 2 seasons ago, about 50-60 last year and only 30 this year. Just (and only just, rain started as the last bales were being wrapped) got some big bale haylage made at the start of this week and it was a new field we'd got to cut this year so don't know what previous bale numbers were but it certainly seemed like only a few bales off 5+ acre field. Still got plenty of bits of hay standing (make that about to fall over) and wondering what it will be like by the time things dry up - September?
Best of luck to everyone struggling to make hay/haylage. Let's see what September brings and keep reminding ourselves we're not the only ones!

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:19 pm

Well I have now let 40 cattle and 100 sheep onto a 10 acre field that has fallen over completely flat. I wouldn't want to make anything out of it now but it's just about OK for them to eat "standing", I hope. They seem to be enjoying it and there's new stuff growing through. Weather forecast looks quite promising at the moment after tomorrow so hopefully making hay or haylage later this week.

Edited By Broomcroft on 1249312814

Martin · Post by **Martin** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:07 pm

“Wheat yields are down by about 0.5t/acre (1.2t/ha),” he said. So far the 12ha (30 acres) of Hereward had only averaged 7.4t/ha (3t/acre), due to drought in the spring.

Above is an extract from an article from the Farmers Weekly website and is from a farmer a couple of miles from me. I have added it to illustrate my point made in previous posts.

Louisa Gidney · Post by **Louisa Gidney** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 10:24 am

What a contrast, just over 2 weeks ago we had 3 inches of rain in one day, massive floods etc. I've flat fields on top of a hill at 1000 feet OD and the water in several places was over the top of my welly boots. I would gladly swop some of my rain for some of your sunshine!

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:52 pm

The weather forecast said a week of dry, sunny weather, so we're planning to start tomorrow, then it changed to rain in 2 days time on and off for a week, now it's gone back to a few days of sun, all within 12 hours!

Martin · Post by **Martin** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:18 am

Louisa, I would gladly do a swap for 'some' of your rain. Because we are in the far south east we tend to only get the tail end of any frontal systems and most of the rain has petered out before it gets to us. There could be a real soaking to the west of London and by the time it reaches us we have barely enough to settle the dust.
My cows are now grazing hay aftermaths that have barely grown since cutting in the middle of June. My grazing fields are in a right state as they have been overgrazed for too long and I will have to do some over seeding to try to get them back to something resembling half decent pasture.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 8:47 am

Well we've made all our forage and we've got the volume but half of it will be very low feed value.

Because of the rain and now a bit of sun, we've got so much grass it's impossible to graze it down. Every field has now become a finishing field and it looks like May out there. Hopefully, if the weather holds out we will be keeping stock out for a long time and maybe we can expect some large calves next year!

Edited By Broomcroft on 1250149730